3 Sea Days - heading to Auckland

---

Geo: -34.4277, 172.68

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 14
I am listing 3 days in a row

Valentine's Day

This is the day we are suppose to be back on the ship at noon and we'll sail away. I got up at 5am and Glenn and I walked off of the NCL Star to the internet cafe that we have connected to before and I spent about 1 hour pasting my journal notes onto my travel blog. Glenn was very patient with me as I spent most of the time picking out pictures to go along with my story. We sat at the picnic table under a canopy. Glenn sat forward with his back to my back to block the cold wind that was blowing. As I was finishing up, it started to rain. That was time to call it quits. I think we were off shore maybe 1.5 hours - just long enough to do "triage" on my emails and to copy/paste my stuff onto my travel blog.

As we were reboarding, we would say "Good Day, Mate" to the port officials there at the cruise terminal. Their response was "Wow, you are the happiest folks we have seen so far". We stopped and chatted more. The folks that they were seeing getting off the ship had sad faces on them. They had decided to "jump" ship and either fly back to their home or even fly to New Zealand to continue a land excursion on their own. As we were doing my "travelblog", there were at least 4 bus loads of folks that pulled away. NCL had offered complimentary bus service to the airport to those that wanted to leave. We ran into David and Rick, friends from Arkansas, who decided to jump ship and do their own thing in New Zealand.

Even though everyone was suppose to be "all on board" at noon, we actually didn't pull away from the dock until about 4:30pm or 5:00pm. The captain came on several times to keep us informed of our progress and finally we pulled away. He said that "we would go out into the Open Bay area and stop". We would lower anchor and do some more testing and then if we get clearance from the Australian officials and the maritime officials, then we would proceed when the NCL Star would get ALL clearances from all Authorities. Glenn figures that the officials wanted to make sure the anchors worked just in case we get stuck out in the middle of the ocean and had to use them. Also, we heard that Australians maritime officials wanted everything to be GOOD. No more patch work that they have been doing.

After the evening show, (Bert Backarack songs) Glenn and I were out on deck and met 2 couples. Jeff and Kathy and Mike and Cindy. I don't know where they are from, but Jeff showed us a picture that he found of the internet - it was a front on photo of the NCL STAR being towed by 1 tug boat in the middle and 2 others on each side. It was a perfect picture. We've asked him to send us the photo via email. It says it all.

We were suppose to eat dinner out, but I didn't feel like it. Glenn went to O'shannon's and ordered some lamb shanks. And they delivered that to our room. The bus boy that delivered it was a friendly guy we would see each morning when I would cross stitch up there. Matter of fact, I gave him the "old" cross stitch bag (USA POSTAGE STAMPS). He was grateful. He had gotten a photo of an "Angel" cross stitch project he had done several years back and wanted to show that to me.

During the show, the officials were lowering the anchors - made quite a noise. As we were visiting with Jeff and Kathy and Mike and Cindy, we were still anchored down. More tests were made and then about 9 or 10 in the evening we started heading out of the bay into the Strait between Australia and Tazmania.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15

I woke up at 5am to read a text to G'daddy. We were moving. We were heading to New Zealand. It is going to be close to our arrival time.

Glenn and I ate breakfast at the Versailles. Before we were eating, our friends, Gary and Eleanor, sat next to us, so we asked them to join us. We were at the very back of the ship. What a good site to see 2 motors working!

I then went to the envelope making class at the "5 o'clock somewhere" bar. I sat with the couple from Memphis that reminds me of Stan and Barbara Orth. There was another gentleman making envelopes and he was kind of a pain. He was an engineer and he was "correcting me" on how to fold the magazine paper. Give me a break. But it was a fun project to learn and to create. I then went to the Cross stitching location.

While there, Glenn and I decided to go and retrieve our passport and "check into" New Zealand. We would do immigration on board and we had to have a "face to face" meeting with the New Zealand Customs and Immigrations. Funny to think that I am now in New Zealand and yet I haven't even seen it. New Zealand DOES NOT stamp your passport. Too bad, I don't have visual proof that I have been to New Zealand.

I didn't eat lunch - I'm not sure what Glenn did. I did take a nap until 1:30pm, and then Glenn and I played Mexican Train with Darla and Rick. That was fun. We played until about 3:30pm when the La Cucina kicked us out. Then we played Catch Phrase.

We had dinner reservations at 8:45pm in Cagney. I hate eating so late, but it was the only time available. So, we went to the show first, then to dinner. While eating our salad, steak, potatoes and Crème bluee, we visited with Becky and Jim. Couple married 45 years, from Notre Dame area and he recently retired from owning several Dairy Queen franchises. Nice couple.

Tonight we lost 1 hour. So, our 8:45 dinner was really 9:45 - late.

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 16

2 Day out at sea. Each morning, I wake up to see if we are still moving. The information on the TV channel about our location and speed were not correct. They had the wrong hour, plus our longitude and latitude stuff was wrong too. We were really wondering if we were still on course. Later in the morning, NCL corrected the TV monitors and such.

Since it had been several weeks since we had eatten breakfast in the Market Cafe, we wanted that experience. We sat out by the pool. No one in that area. We could now see that the boat had about 500 less folks that had gotten off.

Beautiful sunrise - however it was chilly up on Deck 12. But good to see that we were still moving east, towards Auckland, New Zealand.

I wanted to go to the 10:15 presentation about upcoming Cruises. Sherry from Canada, gave us information on where the boats would be cruising from and to.

I didn't eat lunch. We got an announcement in print, that the NCL Star would be arriving at 9:30am into Auckland harbor. The pilot would jump on around 8am and lead us into the port. Because we were arriving 3.5 hours late, in the printed note, NCL apologize for any inconvenience and that they would pay up to 300.00 for change fees in airline arrangements and also would pay up to 350.00 for hotel accommodations. NCL set up another internet/room and phone service. I met Glenn up there.

We are trying to figure out that if we are late, what are our options. I looked on the UA web site to check for flights. I also check for hotels in the area. I figure we are going to arrive at 9:30 and we'll take a taxi after getting off at 10 and head straight to the airport. I needed to talk to an UA employee and see what my options were. So, Glenn and I changed rooms so we could make a phone call. I called UA, gave them my PNR numbers. The agent was very friendly. Since I made reservations with my UA points, if I made changes, it would be 100.00 each (no problem, since NCL would pay that) and however, the points would have to be available. I did find out that the following day, Sunday, the flight from Auckland to San Francisco was available, but the flight from SFO to DFW, was not, and that I would need to fly from SFO to IAD (Dulles airport in DC) and the IAD to DFW arriving in the late Sunday afternoon. I did ask the agent for the Ticket Numbers and also if she could "note" that Glenn and I were out at sea and that our ship had some problems. The UA was very helpful and made those notations in the record. We would need to be at Auckland airport before 2pm when the "flight closes".

Glenn and I attended the 4:30pm event of "Q&A" of the cast members. These were folks that sing and dance. Questions were like "What is it like to live on the ship 24/7?" or "What happens when you dance and the ship is rocking back and forth?"

We had dinner reservations at LaCucina. I ordered chicken parmissane and spaghetti. Very good. Then we went into the 7:30pm show. It was an Australian that sang songs of Edele. I didn't recognize the songs, but she was good. We sat next to our normal friends from Lodi, California Glenn and Cindy (the mormans) and we met Watson and Stephanie from Houston, who have children that live in the Dallas area.

We also ran into Jeff/Kathy and Mike/Cindy and reminded him that we still wanted the photo of NCL being tugged by the 3 tug boats. We also ran into Bob and Becky who we attended the church service with.

It was a good day. As we were walking around the promenade, we came up to the Captain who was jogging. He talked about the Carnival Cruise that went adrift and didn't have any power, electricity, no AC, and folks were in pretty bad shape, compared to our experience. The Captain assured us that we were in no danger and also that we would be arriving at 9:30am into Auckland.

---

Photos

Sea the Dot - that stopped?
This is where the ship lost power and we had to be tugged in